THE STORY OF SWAMI RAMA The Poet Monk of the Punjab BY PURAN SINGH The lights shone down the street In the long blue close of day; A boy's heart beat sweet, sweet, As it flowered in its dreamy clay. Beyond the dazzling throng And above the towers of men The stars made him long, long, To return to their lights again. They lit the wondrous years And his heart within was gay; But a life of tears, tears, He had won for himself that day A. E. The Story Of Swami Rama To All Intoxicated with The Joys of Self-Realisation 2 The Story Of Swami Rama CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT ................................................................................... 4 FOREWORD ................................................................................................ 5 THE MONK HIMSELF .................................................................................. 15 THE MONK HIMSELF (CONTINUED) ............................................................ 26 THE FRUITS IN HIS BASKET: ....................................................................... 45 THE FRAGRANCE THAT SUSTAINED HIM .................................................... 54 WHAT HE SAID .......................................................................................... 75 THE PRE-MONK DAYS: ............................................................................... 96 THE PEE-MONK DAYS (CONTINUED) ........................................................ 146 THE PRE-MONK DAYS (CONTINUED) ........................................................ 155 LOVE OF MOUNTAINS AND SOLITUDES ................................................... 164 RESUME OF HIS EARLY LIFE ..................................................................... 184 SWAMI RAMA TIRATH IN JAPAN ............................................................. 190 SWAMI RAMA TIRATH IN AMERICA ......................................................... 218 THE MONK RETURNS: SWAMI RAMA AT MUTTRA AND PUSHKAR ............ 252 AT BEAS ASHRAM ON THE GANGES ......................................................... 265 THE LAST DAYS: AT VASHISHTHA ASHRAM .............................................. 274 A COLLECTION OF SWAMI RAMA'S LETTERS ............................................ 283 THE PROBLEM OF HIS COUNTRY .............................................................. 351 THE PROBLEM OF HIS COUNTRY (CONTD) ................................................ 366 HIS POETIC SPIRIT: .................................................................................. 385 CONCLUSIONS: A FEW REFLECTIONS ....................................................... 417 APPENDIX - OPINIONS OF THE AMERICAN PRESS ..................................... 440 3 The Story Of Swami Rama ACKNOWLEDGMENT My thanks are due to R. S. Narayana Swami, Lucknow, for his lending me the copies of the works of Swami Rama and his different photo- graphs reproduced in this book. The cuttings from the American press which Swami Narayana had so carefully preserved are now reproduced to bring in clear relief the scheme that Swami Rama had then evolved in America, for the emancipation of India from "Caste" which is now popularly known as "untouchability". I take this opportunity of thanking the friends who kindly looked through the proofs. PURAN SINGH 4 The Story Of Swami Rama FOREWORD WHAT can be the materials for the biography of a man who was silent on the secret of his joyous life like a lotus that springs up from its humble hidden birth-place, and bursts forth into the glory of its own blossom? And what can be his biography but that whoever happened to see him, a flower amongst men, stood for a while, looking at him, and having looked at him full, went past him, deeply suspecting the existence of golden lands beyond this physical life, whose mystic glimpses shone on his smiling face. This full blown lotus refused to give any further details of the story of his life, though much to the agitation of many a soul, he kept on flaunting the perfume of his soul in air. Swami Rama was essentially an apostle of the life of the spirit, whose daily food was the Simiran1 of the name of God—Om. All who knew him saw that he was one who had lost himself in the Lord His repetition of this spiritual Mantram sounded like a river of song flowing out of him. It is written 1 Simiran means the continual repetition of the sacred word; meditation; spiritual concentration. 5 The Story Of Swami Rama that this Simiran is assuredly a sign of inspiration; it is God's favour. Swami Rama had completely disentangled himself from the meshes of the world-net and soared like a bird in the higher skies. A rough pencil-sketch of this inspired personality with whom I first came in contact at Tokyo is given in the following pages in the form of impressions, as it is evidently impossible to trace an authentic history of the development of his mind and his secret love-making with Krishna, God. It was quite natural for him to rise to the heights of love and call to himself all so feelingly - "I am He" "I am God". But this call in his case was more devotional than philosophical. The stormy passion of Swami Rama, his tears of ecstasy, his poetic joys with beauty, his lyrical realization of unity with the people who came around him, his broad human sympathy,—were all quite different from the dry, academic, wooden, unmoving, rigid indifference of a Vedantic philosopher; his little heart beat in harmony with the rhythm of life itself and the sorrow and joy alike of humanity were his own. 6 The Story Of Swami Rama One who would look more closely into his writings would find that the term " Vedanta " as used by Swami Rama has a meaning different from what is generally given to it; it is more or less his own devotion to Krishna or God-Self, blazing up into songs of pantheistic colour. The spirit of his Vedanta, however, was fed by the spirit of the Punjab of Guru Gobind Singh, and further strengthened by the songs of self-affirmation of the adepts like Shams Tabrez and other Persian Masters* All that contributed to the continuous burning of the inner flame of his divine life, he made his own. He used the literature of the whole world - East and West - for winning the inner freedom for himself. His "Aliph," an Urdu periodical that he issued from Lahore, was the chief vehicle of his rhapsodic writings in which he set in his gem-like collections from Persian, Punjabee, English and Sanskrit literatures. It is the characteristic symbol of his all-embracing mind, his keen feeling of oneness with the past and the future. He sinks his sentences into tears. He drowns his thoughts in ecstatic cries. He disarms criticism by tenderly diffusing himself into the being of his 7 The Story Of Swami Rama critic. He wins his enemies by a song of love in which he calls him his own self. He enchants the very air around himself with his bird-like speech that was all poetry, all music. His body was a lake which trembled seeing the Sun entering into its depths. He confounds logic by his divine madness. He contradicts himself in a thousand ways in his self-intoxication which alone is both his creed and religion. His over strung emphasis on the idea—" I am God" - at times jars on one's ears, introduced as it is so abruptly into a charming atmosphere of love- making with gods. In one sentence he asks us to love God, and in the next he suddenly throws out the effigy of "God" from the idol-worshippers temple and sets himself in God's place. It is difficult to follow him, for one needs the madness of his joy, his glowing passion and his inspiration to rise above all imperfections of all such expressions of the Inexpressible. He is concerned with the joy of it all, with being God and with nothing else. No doubt, this man tried to give the secret of his success, but whatever he wished to say was blown away like a dry 8 The Story Of Swami Rama autumn leaf in the tempest of his own bosom and he ended in screams and cries! A truly eloquent apostle of the Life of the Spirit! He pitched himself against the half-life of disbelief and fear. He said " I see fractions of men, not men. I wish men were whole. Wholeness is holiness." As a student he worked against stupendous odds with the will of a conqueror, with the devotion of a satee - woman and with the labour of a galley- slave. Though hungry he would rather deny himself an extra loaf of bread and buy instead more oil for his midnight lamp. And for years, his hunger for knowledge was divine. As a poet he ran wild and naked with the joy of his feelings as he saw them welling up, swallowing in silence the glory of the pure. He would bare his body and lie senseless in the open for hours to be bathed by the Sun, to be wiped by the winds. He lived with the poetic spirit of Nature, and he was on terms of great intimacy with her. He would not sit to shape his gold or set his gems or polish his rubies into any complex work of art. It seems, his thought and feelings in their original shape and colour, had in them the perfection of soul. Never 9 The Story Of Swami Rama mind the outward forms 1 His art was simple; it concerned itself with the creation of joy within himself and in others. With Hafiz and Omar Khayam he sat in the Sacred Tavern of his brother- mystics drinking cups of wine one after another. Tipsy and self-oblivious he went searching for God everywhere! On his return from America, he tried to see things somewhat in the new-learnt fashion of that country, chiseling his sentences and speeches, improving the mechanics of his language and thought, thereby virtually modifying his inspiration. The bliss of soul rises always like a sea; in its tempest all mechanical calculations are confounded. His main theme was the actual creation of joy for himself and for distribution. Alas, if he took to writing essays! One would have loved to see the Swami as he glowed supreme in his own inner joy rising above both man and nature; to see such a man doing something mechanical is nothing short of the disaster of an extraordinary personality that one rarely sees in men like Swami Rama. But these are the temptations of the world.